Opening Notes
Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities
Art unites us. It provides a gateway to a deeper understanding and connection to each other. Art expresses joy and pain, and every emotion in between. The representative art in the following pages are works submitted by Tennesseans with disabilities. The expressions of life, beauty, and sadness are profound. The emotions explode with color and words.
The available ways to express art are limitless. In this publication, you’ll experience drawing, painting, poetry, prose, photography, fiber arts, pottery, and digital art creations.
Along with the works, you’ll find articles related to artists with disabilities who are finding supports to pursue their passions, as well as an article about self-employment opportunities with potential to benefit artists with disabilities.
A special thank you to the artists who submitted their works. All the submissions were incredible. We wish we could have published every one of them. Another round of thanks goes to our Council’s communications committee and our staff, who voted to help us select the submissions you will experience in the following pages.
— Lynette Porter, Deputy Director, TN Council on Developmental Disabilities
Borderless Arts Tennessee
Borderless Arts Tennessee is always honored to be a partner in the arts edition of Breaking Ground. We believe this edition helps to demonstrate how the arts provide bridges for individuals with disabilities. A few ways we see these bridges are in the areas of education, communication, and the workplace.
Research has shown how the arts bridge education gaps by enhancing curriculum, increasing retention and offering alternative methods for demonstrating understanding of classroom material for students of all abilities.
Communication is an essential element of the human experience. The arts provide a communication bridge for people with and without disabilities to share their dreams, convictions and emotions.
In addition, many individuals with disabilities have careers in the arts. Artistic talents provide a bridge for many into a variety of career options.
These are just a few of the many ways the arts provide bridges that allow everyone in our communities to connect and engage in meaningful ways. We thank Breaking Ground for the work in bridging the individuals highlighted in this magazine to you, the reader.
— Lori Kissinger, Executive Director, Borderless Arts Tennessee
TN Arts Commission
The Tennessee Arts Commission remains dedicated to providing arts access for those with limited access to arts, including people with disabilities, through various grants and programs. A prominent example is the Creative Aging Tennessee III program, which is scheduled to continue through 2025. With dollars granted from a national partnership with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and E. A. Michelson Philanthropy, the Arts Commission has been able to infuse training, funding, and resources in local communities to provide arts programming for older adults to increase social engagement, creativity, and participation for those with limited access.
This program will continue through June 2025, but many people have already been impacted with increased access to the arts.
As another program launched in 2023, the Tennessee Arts Commission began providing virtual accessibility webinars, designed to increase awareness and understanding of working with people with disabilities among funded organizations and the broader community. The first webinar was held March 2024 in partnership with the Office of Accessibility at the National Endowment for the Arts. Beth Bienvenu, Director, and Katherine Hayward, Accessibility Specialist, presented “Understanding Accessible Arts Programming,” which provided an overview of accessibility practices used nationally and tips/tools for Tennessee-based organizations to determine if their arts programs are accessible. A second virtual accessibility webinar, “Disability Etiquette: How to include People with Disabilities in your Arts Programming,” was held November 2024 with Donna DeStefano, Assistant Director, Tennessee Disability Coalition, and Kasondra Farmer, Independent Living Specialist, Empower Tennessee.
This webinar provided practical tips/strategies of how to connect and engage people with disabilities to provide accessible programming available to everyone.
The success of this project is deeply rooted in the invaluable collaboration with the Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities, Borderless Arts Tennessee, and Tennessee Disability Pathfinder. Their insightful guidance has been crucial in enabling us to deliver the transformative benefits of the arts to all individuals, particularly those facing limited access.
—Kim Johnson, Director of Arts Access, Tennessee Arts Commission